What is PHP, and why do I need it?

PHP is probably the most popular scripting language on the web. It is used to enhance web pages. With PHP, you can do things like create username and password login pages, check details from a form, create forums, picture galleries, surveys, and a whole lot more. If you've come across a web page that ends in PHP, then the author has written some programming code to liven up the plain, old HTML.


PHP is known as a server-sided language. That's because the PHP doesn't get executed on your computer, but on the computer you requested the page from. The results are then handed over to you, and displayed in your browser. Other scripting languages you may have heard of are ASP, Python and Perl. (You don't need to know any of these to make a start on PHP. In fact, these tutorials assume that you have no programming experience at all.)

 The most popular explanation of just what PHP stands for is "Hypertext Pre-processor". But that would make it HPP, surely? An alternative explanation is that the initials come from the earliest version of the program, which was called Personal Home Page Tools. At least you get the letters "PHP" in the right order!
But PHP is so popular that if you're looking for a career in the web design/web scripting industry then you just have to know it! In these tutorials, we'll get you up and running. And, hopefully, it will be a lot easier than you think.

Welcome to  CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter is an Application Development Framework - a toolkit - for people who build web sites using PHP. Its goal is to enable you to develop projects much faster than you could if you were writing code from scratch, by providing a rich set of libraries for commonly needed tasks, as well as a simple interface and logical structure to access these libraries.

What do you Need?

If your server supports PHP you don't need to do anything.
Just create some .php files in your web directory, and the server will parse them for you. Because it is free, most web hosts offer PHP support.

Config Classes -  Application Flow Chart

1.The index.php serves as the front controller, initializing the base resources needed to run CodeIgniter. 

2. The Router examines the HTTP request to determine what should be done with it. 

3. If a cache file exists, it is sent directly to the browser, bypassing the normal system execution.

4. Security. Before the application controller is loaded, the HTTP request and any user submitted data is       filtered for security. The Controller loads the model, core libraries, helpers, and any other resources needed to process the specific request.

 5.The finalized View is rendered then sent to the web browser to be seen. If caching is enabled, the view is cached first so that on subsequent requests it can be served.

Model-View-Controller

 

CodeIgniter is based on the Model-View-Controller development pattern. MVC is a software approach that separates application logic from presentation. In practice, it permits your web pages to contain minimal scripting since the presentation is separate from the PHP scripting.

• The Model represents your data structures. Typically your model classes will contain functions that help you retrieve, insert, and update information in your database.

• The View is the information that is being presented to a user. A View will normally be a web page, but in CodeIgniter, a view can also be a page fragment like a header or footer. It can also be an RSS page, or any other type of "page".

• The Controller serves as an intermediary between the Model, the View, and any other resources needed to process the HTTP request and generate a web page.

CodeIgniter has a fairly loose approach to MVC since Models are not required. If you don't need the added separation, or find that maintaining models requires more complexity than you want, you can ignore them and build your application minimally using Controllers and Views. CodeIgniter also enables you to incorporate your own existing scripts, or even develop core libraries for the system, enabling you to work in a way that makes the most sense to you.